NewEnergyNews

Gleanings from the web and the world, condensed for convenience, illustrated for enlightenment, arranged for impact...

While the OFFICE of President remains in highest regard at NewEnergyNews, this administration's position on the climate crisis makes it impossible to regard THIS president with respect. Below is the NewEnergyNews theme song until 2020.

Friday, June 29, 2018

Court’s Changes Threatens Climate Fight

“The retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy from the Supreme Court could significantly reshape environmental law in the decades ahead and potentially make it easier for the Trump administration to roll back Obama-era climate change policies in the coming years…In his 30 years on the court, Justice Kennedy was frequently a crucial swing vote on major environmental questions. While he tended to be skeptical of expansive federal regulations that intruded on private property rights, he was also willing to break with the court’s conservative wing in favor of more aggressive government action to limit air and water pollution…

Perhaps most notably, in 2007, he sided with the court’s four liberal justices in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency to rule that the E.P.A. had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. That case laid the groundwork for many of the Obama administration’s major climate policies, including the Clean Power Plan to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants…It is far from certain that a new court would quickly overturn Massachusetts v. E.P.A. and take away the government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases altogether, legal experts said. The court has already upheld that ruling twice in subsequent cases, and, during oral arguments in 2014, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. indicated that he considered the case an established precedent…” click here for more

“…[T]he renewable energy industry is worth about $4 trillion (£2.98 trillion) and 6% of the market value…[According to a new report from the UK stock market operator, it is about the same size as the fossil fuel economy and] will be 7% of that value by 2030, should it continue to rise…[Sectors huddled under the green economy umbrella] include green energy, food and agriculture, waste management and transportation companies…Two-fifths of the green economy is held up by the eco-friendly energy management sector, with energy generation making up 11% of the eco economy…[An estimated 3,000 global listed companies are] involved in these sectors…[The U.S. hosts] just over two-fifths of the green economy, while Japan and China represented 13% and 12%...[The U.K. has] 4% of the eco economy…[Large companies represent] about two thirds of the eco sector…[But] small and medium-sized companies, frequently being snapped up by larger firms, are still behind many innovations.” click here for more

New Energy Needs Energy Efficiency

“…No country came close to a perfect score [in new rankings from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy], and the average remained the same as in 2016 — 51 out of a possible 100 points. Overall, Germany and Italy tie for first place this year with 75.5 points, closely followed by France (73.5), the United Kingdom (73), and Japan (67)…Within sectors, Germany scored best for national efforts, including cross-cutting targets and programs. Spain nabbed the top spot for buildings-related efforts, while Japan led on industry and France on transportation...In a troubling development, the United States slid from 8th place in 2016 to 10th in 2018…

“…The current administration continues to dismantle key regulations…[Its] focus on energy production rather than efficiency has meant that progress on federal energy efficiency policies has largely stalled…On a positive note, the most improved country this year is Mexico…[It] sits just below the United States and Canada in the rankings this year, suggesting that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) may be playing a role in harmonizing efforts…Energy efficiency will need to account for almost half of all the greenhouse gas emission reductions necessary through 2040 to limit the global increase in temperature to 2 degrees Celsius…” click here for more

Thursday, June 28, 2018

CA Court Rejects Lawsuit Against Oil Companies

“…[A closely watched lawsuit brought by San Francisco and Oakland against Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, and ConocoPhillips over the costs of dealing with climate change was dismissed in] a stinging defeat for the plaintiffs…[that] raises warning flags for other local governments around the United States that have filed similar suits…[Federal District Court of San Francisco Judge William Alsup] acknowledged the science of global warming and the great risks to the planet, as did the oil and gas companies being sued…[But he ruled the court ‘will stay its hand in favor of solutions by the legislative and executive branches’ because] the companies were not solely at fault…[He wrote that] the industrial revolution and the development of our modern world has literally been fueled by oil and coal…[and he asked if it is right to] ignore our own responsibility in the use of fossil fuels and place the blame for global warming on those who supplied what we demanded…” click here for more

“Renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) accounted for more than one-fifth (20.05%) of net domestic electrical generation during the first third of 2018, according to a SUN DAY Campaign analysis…[S]olar alone (i.e., utility-scale + distributed PV) is now [third among the renewables,] providing more than 2.0% (i.e., 2.07%) of the nation's electrical production…[W]ind accounted for 8.0% of total electrical generation during the first four months of this year, exceeding that produced by hydropower…

Adding in biomass and geothermal, electrical generation by non-hydro renewables [for January through April] exceeded 12.0% (i.e., 12.07%) of the nation's total output…[That was 11.5% more than in] the first third of 2017…[Renewable sources’ 20.05% nearly match the 20.27% from] nuclear power…” click here for more

Ocean Energy Can Rise

“Global installed wave and tidal energy capacity is forecast] to hit up to 3.9GW by 2030 based on current levels of political support…[That figure could] drop to 2.8GW and 1.3GW respectively in so-called medium and pessimistic scenarios…[According to the optimistic scenario in a new UN study,] the expected tidal stream capacity in 2030 is 2.4GW, tidal range 1GW and wave 500MW…Under the medium scenario, tidal stream capacity forecast is 1.6GW, tidal range 840MW and wave 370MW…The pessimistic scenario predicts tidal stream capacity to reach 700MW tidal range and 70MW for wave with no new tidal range installations…The study expects up to 87% of the cumulative capacity forecast by 2030 will be installed in Europe…Over €6bn has been invested worldwide into projects so far, 75% of which from private finance…The study expects investment ranging between €2.8-9.4bn to 2030, excluding tidal range…[I]mplementation of revenue support across member states is of “paramount importance” to accompany national and EU funding.” click here for more

Editor’s note: This is not a sexy subject but it could be how New Energy triumphs in the marketplace.

With demand for electricity flat, utilities and regulators must cover the costs for delivering electricity as sales diminish. One solution they are testing is new rate design options for residential and commercial and industrial (C&I) consumers that add value by using customer load for grid services. California is leading these efforts. Its C&I sector makes up two-thirds of the state's power demand, which means the right rate design could unlock the potential for significant benefits for its grid. The California Public Utilities Commission is seeking to answer two overarching questions: What is the rate design utilities will support? And what will it take to get customer buy-in for that rate design?

Four fundamental economic goals compose rate design, Severin Borenstein, an energy economist at the University of California at Berkeley said at a recent forum on rate design in California. The first is to motivate customers to use electricity only when “it is valued more than the full additional cost to society,” he said. That is called “economic efficiency of consumption.” Distributing costs fairly, based on “societal views of fairness” and enabling equal access to electricity are the second and third goals. And the fourth one allows power providers to recover all costs. Inefficient rates can result in higher power prices and unwanted outcomes. As the marginal cost of electricity goes up, demand for it should go down, according to economic theory. Where they cross is the efficient price of electricity. But, for most utilities, that efficient price yields a revenue shortfall and the potential for declining revenue because much of their distribution system costs do not drop with demand…click here for more

Editor’s note: Most electricity users probably don’t know it but time-of-use rates will be their future and they will grow New Energy.

Some say pilot projects are a way to avoid the risk of real innovation, but a proposed Xcel Energy pilot to test time-of-use (TOU) rates is charging at innovation and winning praise as it goes. Xcel’s objectives are to find out how to effectively engage customers and if price signals can get customers to shift energy usage away from the peak, Aakash Chandarana, Xcel VP of Rates and Regulatory Affairs, told Utility Dive. Utility surveys consistently find customers “don’t really care,” he said. "This pilot will allow Xcel to test what our customers truly want.” The program is expected to drive greater use of renewables and reduce peak demand. Initial reactions are positive from a range of stakeholders. The pilot will require expenditures that must be paid for by customers, which rarely gets an unequivocal endorsement from ratepayer advocates. But Minnesota Citizens Utility Board (CUB) Executive Director Annie Levenson-Falk said she is happy to see Xcel moving ahead with the pilot because it will likely deliver customer savings.

In addition, utility rate design pilots are usually not structured well enough to satisfy experts. Yet Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) rate design authority Dan Cross-Call emailed that Xcel’s “is promising and applies many good design elements.” The pilot “follows many best practices” and will likely support a “future rollout of widespread opt-out TOU rates,” RMI pilot project authority Mike Henchen added. The two-year, 17,500-customer plan to use three price tiers and drive more off-peak use of Minnesota wind has stood up to serious stakeholder scrutiny. The worst thing said about it so far? It doesn't start soon enough. Utilities across the country thinking about TOU rates may need to take a close look it… click here for more

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

TODAY’S STUDY: Battery Energy Storage Right Now

This report explores trends in U.S. battery storage capacity additions and describes the current state of the market, including information on applications, cost, and market and policy drivers. There are a number of key takeaways:

• At the end of 2017, 708 megawatts (MW) of power capacity, 1 representing 867 megawatthours (MWh) of energy capacity, 2 of large-scale3 battery storage capacity was in operation.

• Over 80% of U.S. large-scale battery storage power capacity is currently provided by batteries based on lithium-ion chemistries.

• About 90% of large-scale battery storage in the United States is installed in regions covered by five of the seven organized independent system operators (ISOs) or regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and in Alaska and Hawaii (AK/HI).

• Nearly 40% of existing large-scale battery storage power capacity (and 31% of energy capacity) lies in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection (PJM), which runs energy and capacity markets and the transmission grid in 13 eastern states and the District of Columbia.

o In 2012, PJM created a new frequency regulation market product for fast-responding resources, the conditions of which were favorable for battery storage. However, recent changes in PJM’s market rules have slowed battery installations in the region.

• Installations in California Independent System Operator (CAISO) territory accounted for 18% of existing U.S. large-scale battery storage power capacity in 2017, but they accounted for 44% of existing energy capacity. o In 2013, the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) implemented Assembly Bill 2514 by setting a mandate for the state’s investor-owned utilities to procure 1,325 MW of energy storage by 2020.

o Large-scale installations in California tend to provide energy-oriented services and tend to serve a wider array of applications than systems in PJM. o In addition, nearly 90% of reported small-scale4 storage power capacity in the United States was reported by four California utilities.

• Costs for battery storage technologies depend on technical characteristics such as the power and energy capacity of a system.

o In general, total installed system costs for batteries of shorter duration are less expensive than long-duration systems on a per-unit of power capacity basis.

o In terms of costs per-unit of energy capacity, the reverse is true—the longer duration batteries will typically have lower normalized costs compared with shorter-duration batteries.

• Battery storage can serve many applications. However, the functional ability of storage to serve these applications has traditionally been not well defined under existing market rules and policies. As the technology has matured and as the industry stakeholders in some regions have gained experience financing, procuring, and operating storage installations, the situation has changed and more clarity has begun to be provided. Most of the activity has been led by specific ISOs/RTOs and state-level regulators.

As of December 2017, project developers report to EIA that 239 MW of large-scale battery storage is expected to become operational in the United States between 2018 and 2021. Given the short planning period required to install a storage facility, the reported planned capacity does not necessarily reflect the entirety of builds over this period, but the estimates can be used as an indicator of trends.

California accounts for 77% of planned large-scale battery storage currently reported. In 2013, California set an energy storage mandate (Assembly Bill 2514), which requires its investor-owned utilities to install 1,325 MW of energy storage across the transmission, distribution, and customer levels by 2024. (See the section on market and policy drivers for more information.)

The Annual Energy Outlook (AEO), provides projections to 2050 on the supply and demand needs for energy markets in the United States. The 2018 AEO report was the first year to include operational or capacity projections of energy storage outside of pumped hydroelectric storage in the model results. The Reference case, which assumes implementation of current U.S. laws and policies, projects largescale wind capacity growth of 50 gigawatts (GW) and large-scale solar photovoltaic capacity growth of nearly 150 GW by 2050. Over this same period, large-scale battery storage capacity is projected to grow to 40 GW, as shown Figure 11. In the longer term, wind and solar growth are projected to support economic opportunities for storage systems that can provide several hours of storage and enable renewable generation produced during the hours with high wind or solar output to supply electricity at times of peak electricity demand.

Challenges exist when modeling energy storage technologies in long-term planning models. Because these models are designed to deliver multi-decade results, simplifications in the structure of the model often occur. One simplification that has significant consequences for the representation of energy storage technologies is the temporal resolution of the model. AEO2018 included energy storage as a 4-hour battery system that can be utilized to avoid curtailments of excess solar- and wind-generated electricity, shift energy within a day, and help meet regional reliability requirements; however modeling sub-hourly markets, such as battery systems participating in frequency response, remains a challenge for many long-term planning models. As a result, the AEO projections shown do not represent all of the available storage technology options nor the full suite of applications that storage can serve. See the list of possible applications for storage in an earlier section of this report.

EIA is collaborating with other modeling entities on a multi-model comparison23 to enhance the representation of technologies that challenge conventional long-term planning model design, such as wind, solar, and energy storage. The representation of battery storage in the AEO will continue to develop as the markets and applications for energy storage evolve…

“…[Daniel Simmons, who heads the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, previously worked for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Institute for Energy Research (IER), which are pro-fossil-fuels organizations funded by Koch brothers money. He] has published opinion essays in major U.S. media extolling the virtues of coal…[He is on the record as opposing supports for] renewable energy through subsidies, tax incentives, or the state-level measures…He has argued that renewable energy mandates cost jobs, gouge consumers, and fleece taxpayers—even though there is a wealth of evidence to refute these arguments…[He also has argued no energy sources should get government support but has failed to speak out on White House proposals to support] coal and nuclear energy…[He goes before the Senate today] for his confirmation vote…” click here for more

“…[Medium- and large-scale solar power projects that expect to take a year to two (or more) for development and construction just got a two year extension on the Investment Tax Credit (ITC)…[A new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruling officially replaced the requirement to bring solar projects online by the tax credit’s deadline date with a requirement to begin construction by a deadline date. That means that instead of the solar project having to finish by December 31st, 2019, it must now begin construction, defined as 5% of the work or investment, on or by that date to qualify for 30% tax credit. The same time schedule] applies to the follow two years and their 26% and 22% tax credits…This two year window will give investors and utilities reasonable motivation to invest in more projects, even as end of year dates arrive. And this in turn can have repercussions for fossil generation, as Xcel noted that this would allow it to close two coal plants a decade early…[T]here could also be projects whose timelines are extended…under the expectation of continued declines in hardware pricing…” click here for more

Monday, June 25, 2018

TODAY’S STUDY: How To Deal With The Coming Time-Of-Use Rates

The energy industry adage emphasizing “the cheapest energy is the energy you don’t use in the first place,” may not be 100% accurate. This prevailing adage involves only looking at reducing kWh consumption via energy conservation measures. This approach, however, does not consider time-of-use. Using energy during periods of high grid demand can have significant cost implications for coincident users and for the entire system.

Using our energy analytics software (EAS), RTIS®, on several client sites has clearly demonstrated that if facility managers, energy management vendors, legislators, and regulators all operate based on this conservation principle alone, the adverse consequences to facility energy usage, costs, and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) could be significant.

Consider the following:

• A few instances of peak demand can cause spikes that lead to significantly increased monthly costs, often including demand ratchets that result in increased costs for the entire year ahead. In many cases, even if a facility uses considerably more demand during just one billing interval when compared to all other times during the year, the facility will pay for the maximum demand sizing for that delivery “pipe” in their monthly demand charges all year long.

• To ensure that enough power can be generated during peak demand periods, utilities need to build substations, transformers, and other infrastructure to meet peak demand, even if a large amount of peak demand occurs over a short duration in any given area. Eventually, all customers pay for this in the form of rate increases.

• During periods of peak demand, additional and dirtier “load following” power plants are deployed, resulting in significantly higher GHG emissions and fine particulate matter emissions. The difference in GHG emissions between a peak day and non-peak day can be as high as 50%.

• In some jurisdictions, distribution utilities can also charge a punitive “critical peak” demand charge for periods of peak societal demand, a pricing strategy to discourage use during peak periods.

• Similarly, regarding kWh power supply costs, suppliers incorporate capacity charges into their cost of goods. This cost can constitute up to 20% of the kWh price and it is expected to rise as much as four-fold in some areas over the next few years.

A common recommendation stemming from an energy audit is to use a building or energy management system (BMS or EMS) to cut back kWh usage during evenings, weekends, and other unoccupied periods to achieve energy-efficiency targets.

Logically this makes sense, but in the absence of additional information a strategy like this can backfire. For example, on successive days of a heatwave, a building can retain too much heat from day to day, and if efficiency setbacks prevent the building from being cooled during the evening or weekend, HVAC systems will work much harder to maintain comfort, thereby using more energy and causing significantly more kW demand and related charges during more expensive, onpeak utility billing periods.

The following chart was exported from our real-time energy analytics software platform, RTIS®. It contains an actual example of the staggering budget impact of “avoidable” peak demand costs that occurred at a high school with a fine-tuned EMS being managed under an energy savings performance contract.

The X-axis of the load curve represents the extent of time a peak demand level was reached throughout the year; the Y-axis represents the actual kW demand level. For this high school, reducing an incremental peak of 295 kW by managing the peak usage that is occurring during just 1% of the year would reduce their annual energy costs by approximately 12%.

Had the high school been cooled more aggressively during just a few unoccupied evenings and weekends during heat waves, significant kW demand would have been avoided. Moreover, evening/weekend kWh usage would have been during off-peak hours, when the kWh costs are much lower. The facility’s kWh power supply capacity cost of goods would have been much lower for the year as well

Modern energy efficiency measures (EEMs) like HVAC and lighting controls can be harnessed to provide addressable end points to better manage demand, and reduce energy costs and GHG emissions. The key is deploying an intelligent EAS like RTIS® that can analyze real-time data from different sources to determine the optimal treatment of a given situation. Rather than simply curtailing loads during unoccupied periods, RTIS® takes into account weather conditions, facility usage, historical performance, and power grid demand, adding a new level of intelligence. Further, by integrating RTIS® with a BMS or EMS that can control individual EEMs, the system can autonomously capture previously invisible avoidable cost opportunities.

With the advent of modern IoT and analytics technology, perhaps the energy industry adage should be changed to “the cheapest energy may be the energy you don’t use, depending upon the time.”

“…Scratch a climate skeptic, and you’ll find an innovation pessimist. They don’t believe it can be done. Overwhelmed by the scale of the problem, they assume that we can’t change our trajectory. Secretly, they’re depressed about it. They need hope…Climate change crawls and creeps; it doesn’t goose step. Addressing it requires a coordinated global response, and innovation pessimists are right to doubt the ability of the United Nations and the ability of the regulatory state to solve the problem…But the innovation pessimists are missing the dynamism that comes from [adding the health and climate damages to the price of fossil fuels]…

…This accountability would shatter the illusion that energy from fossil fuels is cheap. In a transparent, accountable energy market, consumers — not regulators, not mandates, not fickle tax incentives — would drive demand for clean energy…[T]his could be accomplished through a carbon tax applied at the mine and at the pipeline. The revenue raised from the carbon tax should then be returned to taxpayers in cuts to existing taxes or in the form of dividend checks to ensure no growth of government…The strength of the American market would become evident…[and drive out innovation opponents who are] vested politically or financially in fossil fuels…” click here for more

“Arizona families and businesses would get lower bills if utilities got 50 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources like solar and wind, compared to if these same utilities go forward with their fossil fuel-heavy plans for the future…[A new report] found that average electricity bills in 2030 would be three dollars a month lower if Arizona pursues a high-renewables future, and five dollars a month lower in 2040…[The] total electricity system cost savings in the high-renewables future between 2020 and 2040 total more than $4 billion…

Arizona is the nation’s sunniest state, yet gets just six percent of its electricity from solar power…[A diverse coalition of environmental and public health advocates is] working to place a measure on the November 2018 general election ballot that would require utilities like APS and Tucson Electric Power (TEP) to [change plans to build natural gas generation and] source 50 percent of their electricity from renewables, like wind and solar power, by 2030…” click here for more

Climate Change Goes Downtown

“Billions of people in thousands of cities around the world will be at risk from climate-related heat waves, droughts, flooding, food shortages and energy blackouts by mid-century, but many cities are already taking action to blunt such effects [according to The Future We Don't Want]…To battle extreme heat, Seoul has planted 16 million trees and expanded its green space by 3 square kilometers. The city has also set up shaded cooling centers for those unable to access air conditioning…New York City is improving coastal flood mapping, strengthening large-scale coastal defenses and building smaller, strategically placed local storm surge barriers around the city…São Paulo has set up reward schemes to encourage citizens to use less water, while investing in the city's pipeline system to reduce water leakage…Paris plans to establish more than 80 acres of urban agriculture within the city's boundaries by 2020. By 2050, 25 percent of the city's food supply will be produced in the metropolitan region…London is improving drainage to ensure that key infrastructure can withstand heavy flooding, The city is also encouraging decentralized energy supplies to reduce the risk of widespread blackouts if any one power source is damaged…Lima has created a poverty map of the city to help policy makers focus resources on the most vulnerable and under-served areas, where people are most exposed to extreme heat.” click here for more

Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars that will ReCharge America by Sherry Boschert: "Smart companies plan ahead and try to be the first to adopt new technology that will give them a competitive advantage. That’s what Toyota and Honda did with hybrids, and now they’re sitting pretty. Whichever company is first to bring a good plug-in hybrid to market will not only change their fortune but change the world."

Oil On The Brain; Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline by Lisa Margonelli: "Spills are one of the costs of oil consumption that don’t appear at the pump. [Oil consultant Dagmar Schmidt Erkin]’s data shows that 120 million gallons of oil were spilled in inland waters between 1985 and 2003. From that she calculates that between 1980 and 2003, pipelines spilled 27 gallons of oil for every billion “ton miles” of oil they transported, while barges and tankers spilled around 15 gallons and trucks spilled 37 gallons. (A ton of oil is 294 gallons. If you ship a ton of oil for one mile you have one ton mile.) Right now the United States ships about 900 billion ton miles of oil and oil products per year."

NOTEWORTHY IN THE MEDIA:
NewEnergyNews would welcome any media-saavy volunteer who would like to re-develop this section of the page. Announcements and reviews of film, television, radio and music related to energy and environmental issues are welcome.

Review of OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades by Mark S. Friedman

OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades, the second volume of Herman K. Trabish’s retelling of oil’s history in fiction, picks up where the first book in the series, OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction, left off. The new book is an engrossing, informative and entertaining tale of the Roaring 20s, World War II and the Cold War. You don’t have to know anything about the first historical fiction’s adventures set between the Civil War, when oil became a major commodity, and World War I, when it became a vital commodity, to enjoy this new chronicle of the U.S. emergence as a world superpower and a world oil power.

As the new book opens, Lefash, a minor character in the first book, witnesses the role Big Oil played in designing the post-Great War world at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Unjustly implicated in a murder perpetrated by Big Oil agents, LeFash takes the name Livingstone and flees to the U.S. to clear himself. Livingstone’s quest leads him through Babe Ruth’s New York City and Al Capone’s Chicago into oil boom Oklahoma. Stymied by oil and circumstance, Livingstone marries, has a son and eventually, surprisingly, resolves his grievances with the murderer and with oil.

In the new novel’s second episode the oil-and-auto-industry dynasty from the first book re-emerges in the charismatic person of Victoria Wade Bridger, “the woman everybody loved.” Victoria meets Saudi dynasty founder Ibn Saud, spies for the State Department in the Vichy embassy in Washington, D.C., and – for profound and moving personal reasons – accepts a mission into the heart of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. Underlying all Victoria’s travels is the struggle between the allies and axis for control of the crucial oil resources that drove World War II.

As the Cold War begins, the novel’s third episode recounts the historic 1951 moment when Britain’s MI-6 handed off its operations in Iran to the CIA, marking the end to Britain’s dark manipulations and the beginning of the same work by the CIA. But in Trabish’s telling, the covert overthrow of Mossadeq in favor of the ill-fated Shah becomes a compelling romance and a melodramatic homage to the iconic “Casablanca” of Bogart and Bergman.

Monty Livingstone, veteran of an oil field youth, European WWII combat and a star-crossed post-war Berlin affair with a Russian female soldier, comes to 1951 Iran working for a U.S. oil company. He re-encounters his lost Russian love, now a Soviet agent helping prop up Mossadeq and extend Mother Russia’s Iranian oil ambitions. The reunited lovers are caught in a web of political, religious and Cold War forces until oil and power merge to restore the Shah to his future fate. The romance ends satisfyingly, America and the Soviet Union are the only forces left on the world stage and ambiguity is resolved with the answer so many of Trabish’s characters ultimately turn to: Oil.

Commenting on a recent National Petroleum Council report calling for government subsidies of the fossil fuels industries, a distinguished scholar said, “It appears that the whole report buys these dubious arguments that the consumer of energy is somehow stupid about energy…” Trabish’s great and important accomplishment is that you cannot read his emotionally engaging and informative tall tales and remain that stupid energy consumer. With our world rushing headlong toward Peak Oil and epic climate change, the OIL IN THEIR BLOOD series is a timely service as well as a consummate literary performance.

Review of OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction by Mark S. Friedman

"...ours is a culture of energy illiterates." (Paul Roberts, THE END OF OIL)

OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, a superb new historical fiction by Herman K. Trabish, addresses our energy illiteracy by putting the development of our addiction into a story about real people, giving readers a chance to think about how our addiction happened. Trabish's style is fine, straightforward storytelling and he tells his stories through his characters.

The book is the answer an oil family's matriarch gives to an interviewer who asks her to pass judgment on the industry. Like history itself, it is easier to tell stories about the oil industry than to judge it. She and Trabish let readers come to their own conclusions.

She begins by telling the story of her parents in post-Civil War western Pennsylvania, when oil became big business. This part of the story is like a John Ford western and its characters are classic American melodramatic heroes, heroines and villains.

In Part II, the matriarch tells the tragic story of the second generation and reveals how she came to be part of the tales. We see oil become an international commodity, traded on Wall Street and sought from London to Baku to Mesopotamia to Borneo. A baseball subplot compares the growth of the oil business to the growth of baseball, a fascinating reflection of our current president's personal career.

There is an unforgettable image near the center of the story: International oil entrepreneurs talk on a Baku street. This is Trabish at his best, portraying good men doing bad and bad men doing good, all laying plans for wealth and power in the muddy, oily alley of a tiny ancient town in the middle of everywhere. Because Part I was about triumphant American heroes, the tragedy here is entirely unexpected, despite Trabish's repeated allusions to other stories (Casey At The Bat, Hamlet) that do not end well.

In the final section, World War I looms. Baseball takes a back seat to early auto racing and oil-fueled modernity explodes. Love struggles with lust. A cavalry troop collides with an army truck. Here, Trabish has more than tragedy in mind. His lonely, confused young protagonist moves through the horrible destruction of the Romanian oilfields only to suffer worse and worse horrors, until--unexpectedly--he finds something, something a reviewer cannot reveal. Finally, the question of oil must be settled, so the oil industry comes back into the story in a way that is beyond good and bad, beyond melodrama and tragedy.

Along the way, Trabish gives readers a greater awareness of oil and how we became addicted to it. Awareness, Paul Roberts said in THE END OF OIL, "...may be the first tentative step toward building a more sustainable energy economy. Or it may simply mean that when our energy system does begin to fail, and we begin to lose everything that energy once supplied, we won't be so surprised."

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